ADHD Children Lead More Creative Adult Lives

A new study claims that adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) enjoyed more creative achievement than those who did not have the disorder.

Researchers at Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL, USA) and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA) gave 60 college students (half of them with ADHD) a series of tests measuring creativity across 10 domains, including humor, music, visual arts, culinary arts, invention, and writing. The participants also filled in a standardized measure of creativity, the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA), and also completed the FourSight Thinking Profile (FSTP), which assesses the respondents' preferred creative style: clarifiers, who define and structure the problem; ideators, who like to generate ideas; developers, who elaborate or refine ideas and solutions; and implementers, who incorporate a refined idea into a final product or solution.

The results indicated that adults with ADHD showed higher levels of original creative thinking on the verbal task of the ATTA, as well as higher levels of real-world creative achievement, compared to adults without ADHD. In addition, a comparison of creative styles based on the FSTP found that preference for idea generation was higher among ADHD participants, whereas preference for problem clarification and idea development was greater among non-ADHD participants. According to the researchers, these findings have real-world implications on the creative styles of adults with and without ADHD. The study was published in the April 2011 issue of the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences.

"For the same reason that ADHD might create problems, like distraction, it can also allow openness to new ideas,” said coauthor Holly White, PhD, an assistant professor of cognitive psychology at Eckerd College. "Not being completely focused on a task lets the mind make associations that might not have happened otherwise.”

ADHD, also known as ADD, is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder characterized by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity, with each behavior occurring together and infrequently alone. ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3% to 5% of children globally, and diagnosed in about 2% to 16% of school-aged children; ADHD is diagnosed two to four times more frequently in boys than in girls, with symptoms starting before seven years of age. It is a chronic disorder with 30% to 50% of those individuals diagnosed in childhood continuing to have symptoms into adulthood.

Related Links:
Eckerd College
University of Michigan